Christmas Ficlets Colby/Lorne

Disclaimer: No, I don't own them, for which I should think they're profoundly grateful.

Author's Notes: For fyrefly101, who asked for: Colby and Lorne, "Here. These are all the postcards I never actually got around to sending."

Feedback: Yes please. Even if it's bad. Especially if it's bad.

"You were in another galaxy," Colby repeats. "All the times you didn't answer your emails for weeks, all the times I couldn't get you on the phone, all the times you turned up unexpectedly… you were in another galaxy. Fighting aliens."

"I wanted to tell you," Evan says, since he's not sure whether Colby's angry or just stunned. He's got no idea how he'd feel if his boyfriend turned up on his doorstep explaining that, yeah, the alien ship in the San Francisco Bay? He just flew in on it, and he's been living in it for four years.

Colby gives him a look that strongly implies he's being really stupid. Apparently, working with scientists still has that effect when they're mathematicians. "I'm guessing you signed about five hundred pieces of paper saying you wouldn't do that."

"Approximately," Evan agrees. "If you hadn't… I would have given them your name. To recruit."

Colby's face does the same thing it did when he explained the spy thing to Evan, and Evan said, "I get it, it's okay," and Evan figures this is as good a time as any to hand over the carved wooden box he's been filling since his second day in Pegasus. Colby takes it hesitantly. "I wanted to tell you," Evan repeats. "And sometimes I just wanted to talk to you, but I couldn't, so…"

Colby lifts the lid of the box, and draws out a handful of postcards. There are a lot more. "You wrote to me?"

"Everything I wasn't allowed to say," Evan agrees. Colby looks up, and Evan holds his gaze, knows Colby can see that he isn't just talking about Atlantis and his job.

"If someone had found it…" Colby starts. He reaches behind himself and sits down on his couch.

Colby does, spreading them slowly around him as he works his way through them, sometimes asking questions, sometimes laughing or making a noise of recognition that tells Evan he's come upon a story Evan told him once, but edited. After a while, Evan goes to make dinner; there are a lot of cards. He had a lot to say.

"Henderson really got turned into a rabbit?" Colby calls as Evan's boiling water for pasta.

"He got over it," Evan calls back. "Though I swear he didn't like carrots as much before as he does now."

Colby laughs, then goes quiet. Evan assumes he's reading, that there's another question coming, but the silence drags on, way beyond the usual gap there is between one card and the next.

Evan checks nothing is going to boil over or burn if he leaves it, then moves to lean in the doorway. Colby's sitting very still, a card in his hand that Evan recognizes, and winces at having forgotten. It shows a dark wall, and bars across an empty window; he'd bought it before he left for Atlantis, meaning to send it to a friend who was getting married, but never getting around to it.

"I remember this," Colby says quietly. "You were – I couldn't figure out why you didn't reply to any of my emails, but you were in a cell, you were…"

Evan remembers, word for word, what he wrote: I thought no-one was going to come for us. They said they'd sent back burned bodies with our tags, and we failed at breaking out twice. I thought we'd die there, and I kept thinking that these cards are all for you, and no-one would know. It's the only card he addressed.

"We're fine," Evan says. "The doctors figured it out, and Sheppard came for us. It was years ago." He doesn't say that they've been through much worse, though it's true, they have. He doesn't think it will make Colby feel any better.

Colby nods, like he's shaking it off, though Evan knows he isn't. Colby still doesn't mention Dwayne Carter's name unless he absolutely has to. "Okay. You shouldn’t put my name on things, you know."

"I'll be fine," Evan says, and that at least is true. He has good friends in Atlantis. People who'll look out for him, even after he's dead. "There's a few of us in LA right now. You should come for dinner with us one night."

"Will they have more stories?" Colby asks. Evan thinks about them: Radek and Jennifer and Katie, the things they know from him and from his team and from McKay, who can't keep his mouth shut. Colby's grin goes wicked and sly. "I'll buy the beer," he says.

Evan thinks it's just slightly possible that he might end up regretting this.